


World Tour

by ianixela



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: AU, Alcohol, Alternate Universe - Rock Band, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Ben Solo is a Mess, Ben goes soul searching, Casual Sex, Drama & Romance, Drunk Driving, Drunken Confessions, Drunken Kissing, Explicit Language, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Pining, Promiscuity, Rey Needs A Hug, Reylo - Freeform, Romance, but all is well that ends well trust me, leap year fic sorta, they're both idiots in this one, travel fic, travel porn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-29
Updated: 2020-09-29
Packaged: 2021-03-08 00:08:52
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,836
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26716522
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ianixela/pseuds/ianixela
Summary: Ten years of performing for a manufactured pop-rock ensemble certainly was a respectable achievement, but for Ben Solo, it's what happens after the band disbands that changes everything about the life he thought he knew. Or: Ben Solo gets rejected and goes on a soul-searching trip that takes him right back to the woman he loves.
Relationships: Armitage Hux/Rose Tico, Rey & Ben Solo | Kylo Ren, Rey/Ben Solo, Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 10
Kudos: 58





	World Tour

**Author's Note:**

> Hey hey long time no see! I've been busy in many ways in the past few months, including finding out that I'm growing a small human! It wasn't unplanned, but procreating in this pandemic is an interesting experience to say the least...so yeah, writing took a bit of a back seat but I have things up my sleeves for y'all, stay tuned.
> 
> Enough about me, more about this story: I really got inspired by the Korean pop industry for this, weirdly enough. I find their manufactured, trainee-audition, contest-centric band forming methods fascinating. Their obsession with documenting emerging bands with reality tv shows is super interesting and I kinda shaped the story with that in mind. You'll see I guess. Also, are y'all tired of rock star Ben Solo? cause I'm not so suck it up hahaaaa. They are both huge dummies, like emotionally constipated idiots but it's all for the best you'll see. This is a big ode to traveling solo (har har), something I've done plenty in my life and how great it is at expanding your mind, making you realize stuff about yourself, and just flat out discovering new things without a social filter. Travel by yourself y'all, it will do you some good!
> 
> Warnings are in the tags, I don't think I need to add anything here, the main potential issues I'm seeing are with alcohol consumption and dubious decisions associated to drunkenness but that's pretty much it. As always all mistakes and typos and inconsistencies are my own and probably made worse by pregnancy brain whoops!
> 
> Also: Ben is kinda promiscuous and has sex with other people in this one and y'all need to CHILL. Single people have casual sex sometimes, consenting adults can do what they want and only having sex with a single person all your life isn't realistic for the average human. I'm not bashing anyone who thinks differently but this is my story and this is what feels genuine to me. If that's not your cup of tea (and that's 100% okay), go read something that gives you joy. Alright with that said, happy reading!

* * *

It starts on a grey morning, a group of young people huddled together in a sleekly decorated waiting room. In an intimidating skyscraper in a Manhattan neighbourhood none of them could afford the rent for, at first glance anyway.

Tension dripping off the group in near visible drops.

This is it. This is their chance at making it. Maybe.

Benjamin Organa Solo observes the others, _kids_ really, wondering if they’ll be bandmates or competition and he worries. Because he’s heard the tall, blonde haired girl with ocean blue eyes sitting in the corner with a forbiddingly cool expression play the bass with virtuoso talent earlier and he wonders if that’s what First Order Talent will ask of him. He couldn’t even _hope_ to measure up to that.

There’s another boy who sings beautifully, richly skinned, broad in the shoulder and good legs, rounded glasses and a joyful face, lugging around a battered keyboard case. And this kid fidgeting with a pair of drumsticks who looks right out of a fashion magazine casting call, slender and pale, long wispy red curls and thick lashes and a shy smile that gives an endearing edge to his sharp faced beauty.

Ben is not particularly good looking. He doesn’t think so anyway, his nose and ears too big for his face and his features all angles and all he has is his hastily written guitar licks and three years of busking on street corners and wild dreams.

It's all Ben has, and when faced with what could be competition he feels like he could never measure up. _Why was he even here_?

He starts thinking that this audition was a stupid idea and debates on ways to leave subtly while still keeping face. Or what’s left of it anyway.

Then this fifth person comes in, hastily, guitar case slung on her shoulder. Wearing plain, well-worn serviceable clothes; dark jeans, and a faded military jacket, a grey beanie on her side-swept chestnut hair and her skin dusky, freckled gold.

Her smile is blinding bright and how it crinkles the corners of her hazel eyes makes Ben’s heart stutter.

She’s gorgeous, and the energy that emanates from her is dizzying and catalyzing and Ben’s a little light-headed. Like he stood up too quickly and the blood rush is making him see stars.

He doesn’t think he’s seen someone more beautiful than that girl in his life and he feels short of breath, face burning when he realizes he’s been staring.

He didn’t even think he could feel this way about people and the thought is completely overwhelming. It feels like a revelation.

The newcomer sidles up to the tall, cool girl and unabashedly pokes at her playfully, magically unafraid and laughing at the way the other girl pushes her back, annoyed. Her laughter is surprisingly low, fluted and reedy.

Green-gold eyes settle on him, curious, and he immediately feels his stomach drop, avoiding the searching gaze. Maybe he’ll just ignore her and he can get out of this place with his dignity intact.

He knows it's over when a pair of filthy-white converse clad feet settle in front of him and he’s forced to look up, if only to be polite, and there she is. Looking down at him with soft looking lips curled up and a proffered hand.

“You’re new.”

Not a question, and the girl thrusts her hand forward again, and he feels compelled to take it, small and warm in his own hand, delicate fingers squeezing his own self-assuredly. He nods hastily, trying to answer without having to say anything because he feels like if he opens his mouth for even a second he will manage to make a fool of himself.

He feels the others in the room studying their interaction and he feels on the spot and too warm, too cold, he’s not sure really.

He wishes he could turn his body off until it can make up its _fucking_ mind.

“I’m Ben. Ben Solo. Lead guitar.” he finally says, glad that his voice didn’t crack around the words.

The girl smiles, teeth _so_ white.

“Rey Niima, I also play guitar. And I sing.”

_Oh. That’s attractive. Okay then._

The thought makes his stomach flutter again, in a way he can’t decide if it's pleasant or not.

“Nice meeting you, Rey.”

Her replying smile crinkles her eyes and she pulls away the hand Ben was probably squeezing to death, and he wishes he could melt down through the floor and maybe disappear forever.

* * *

Sometimes Ben thinks everything goes too fast.

He goes from busking in metro stations and sneaking into clubs to play open mic nights, living from paycheck to paycheck and sharing a tiny apartment with two university students to moving in with four strangers in a shared house. It’s how First Order does things, apparently.

 _A new concept for our future bands we are trialling with all of you. We love to see how you interact, and the fans will love it too,_ Snoke, their new boss and CEO of First Order had said, in his oily tone.

They also clearly liked building momentum for bands that have no material out yet with weird reality TV narratives, Ben learns, getting out of the house one morning only to get assailed by cameras monitoring his every move, and questions thrust at him left and right.

The underlying anxiety at having his life laid out for all to see and the dizzying rigamarole of the promotional cycle becoming a constant in his everyday routine. He didn’t think he’d have to play house with strangers on national TV. It's a big adaptation for a private, introverted person like him.

He thought he was ready for a bit of notoriety, but sometimes at the end of the day, really early in the morning rather, he hides in the second floor bathroom and tries to breathe and fails.

Sometimes it's just too much.

Smile. Smile for the camera. Show your body. Look good, no, look perfect for the people all over the world watching you struggle. Watching you get destroyed by harsh criticism on social media, watching you fall asleep on every available flat surface because you have to function on three hours of sleep.

Talking to his parents on the phone for a few minutes, writing the things weighing his mind down in his notebook; it used to be enough to reassure him, let out his frustrations and the jumbled emotions he has to keep inside. 

Not now though.

Not with the final stages of their album release looming over his head, slumped over on the cool tile in the bathroom, back against the edge of the tub.

Knowing he’s wasting precious sleeping hours feeling miserable but he can’t help it, struggling to keep the tears in.

There is a knock on the door, and the handle turns and he curses at himself for being so weak, for being loud enough for someone to hear, for forgetting to lock the damn door.

He wipes at his reddened eyes and sits a little straighter, tucking his long legs against his body, wrapping arms around them, knees against his chest like a shield.

His blood turns to ice when he sees Rey come in.

Sleep-fluffed and her sleek chestnut hair in disarray, eyes heavy-lidded.

He expects a scolding, both for waking her up and not sleeping himself, bracing his back against the imminent onslaught. Rey is wordy by nature but it gets worse when she’s irritated, and she hates being woken up with a passion rivalling the average teenager.

But Rey is calm. She looks languid and _so_ soft, her lower lip pink and swollen.

Ben thinks for half a second too long about the texture of those lips, and how it would feel to kiss them.

Half a second can feel like a very long time. Eternity even.

It makes him feel half a million times more self conscious, as if crying hadn’t been enough already, hugging his knees closer to his chest and feeling his own skin tingling with the strength of his embarrassment.

Rey shuffles further in, slippered feet not making any sounds on the tile, crouches low across from him, and she manages to make the movement elegant, in that effortless way she has of being.

There’s a silence that Ben would qualify as vaguely uncomfortable, Rey studying him intently through the veil of sleep still shading her hazel eyes.

“Are you okay?” she asks, husky-voiced and concerned, and Ben wonders if its the tone of her voice or the worried cant of her delicate brows or simply the fact that she’s there when Ben feels about to shatter that makes him break down.

But he does. His heart feels like bursting out of his chest and he can’t articulate a single word because he can’t breathe. The room feels too small and his skin too tight and he’d explain it if he could fit enough air in his lungs to talk.

Rey doesn’t demand explanations. She doesn’t say anything.

Instead she gets closer, so _close_ , warm hands on his knees and arms and shoulders, tugging him forward.

Rey holds him without a word, emitting a sound of disagreement when Ben manages to whimper that he’s the most pathetic human on the face of this earth.

That's how it feels anyway, but Rey’s hummed disagreement quiets him. She waits for Ben to breathe again before saying anything, and it's quiet, and soft.

“We’ll make it on the other side. You’re one of the best guitarists I’ve ever met, Ben. There’s no way you _can’t_ do this. You have too much fucking raw talent for that, Ben Solo. We’ll make it, we all will.” she murmurs, breath warm and even on the side of his neck.

The reassurance doesn’t feel hollow. It's fervent and honest and he wishes he had Rey’s boundless faith and yet, he finds himself believing the words.

They all have talent. It's there, underneath uncertainty and yet unhoned skills, and all it needs is a little polishing.

In his case it feels like a lot of polishing to do.

“Don’t give up on me, Ben. Don’t give up on yourself, don’t give up on _us_.”

It is the _us_ that makes his heart race. There is an “ _us_ ” to consider. Him and Rey and the other three kids laying their dreams on the line.

He decides to be strong, if not for himself for that “ _us_ ”, that “ _we_ ”.

Rey gives him hope.

Ben goes to sleep exhausted, head hurting, but he doesn’t protest when Rey lays on the mattress beside him, lost to dreams in a heartbeat.

The next day they get told their album comes out in four weeks.

He and Rey on guitar, and her voice like an angel. Finn with his easy smiles and magical keyboard skills. Cool girl Gwen Phasma on bass, Armie Hux with the face to make girls cry on drums. There’s Rose Tico, their handler, and hot headed manager Poe Dameron on their team too.

There is an _us_ , only made more real when Rey holds his hand behind her backs in the aftermath of the announcement, a tight squeeze before the fingers are gone and they gather in Snoke’s office to sign their contract with First Order.

That night he cries again, but its happy tears instead of fearful ones, and Rey holds him tight and cries too.

* * *

Sometimes Ben wonders if Rey even has a sexual orientation to speak of.

He likes to think of himself as a rather sexually active person, and despite the fact that he can be as awkward as a brick, girls seem to find him appealing. Boys seem to like him too, not that he is adverse to the idea per-se, he’s always been a pretty open-minded guy, and sex is just a nice thing to participate in. 

More often than not though, girls are his routine one night stands, of which he has a few. More than a few really, relationships are not so good for his “bad boy” image according to upper management, and it's not like he wants to date anyway. Not when he likes fucking as much as he does, and that there’s a certain girl that he thinks about more than anything else when he’s jerking off in the shower at night.

Ben tries to bury those thoughts as often as humanly possible, because he _can’t_ have Rey. He’s a bit young for career suicide and going after his bandmate is a recipe for disaster. Of that he is pretty sure. Snoke would have his head.

Rey however, in all the years that they’ve been living with each other and sharing spaces, has never once been caught with _anyone_ , male or female.

She’s walked in on Ben a couple times, and he’s definitely interrupted things for the rest of their bandmates too. Ben even walked in on Hux once, but that one time included a coworker since the drummer was kissing Rose Tico in the kitchen, middle of the night when everyone was supposed to be sleeping.

Hux still kisses Rose a lot, they just don’t try to hide anymore. While they hadn’t been any good at hiding their _obvious_ relationship, the disappearance of their clumsy secrecy had been a relief for everyone.

But Rey is as chaste as a nun, or seems to be anyway, and has been since they’ve started the band unless she’s even more of a secretive witch than she lets on. It has him puzzled. And very curious.

They’re sitting out in the living room one night, Rey sprawled on the couch with her nose in a book and Ben lying down on the floor with his acoustic guitar and a notebook, trying to write phrases that refuse to line up because he has all those questions burning his tongue. He doesn’t know why it aches at him so suddenly, maybe because last night he was with a girl and it was the thought of Rey naked and moaning that got him off.

He flushes crimson just thinking about it.

“Did you date anyone before we signed with F.O.?” he asks before he can stop himself, and Rey shuts her book, lambent eyes amused when she turns to him.

Her hair is a soft, pink tinted blonde for their next album release and it makes her eyes look bottomless. She’s so gorgeous in the dim light it makes Ben light-headed.

“Why so curious?” Rey replies, and Ben is grasping at straws for a legitimate reason for his prying question but finds none.

“I’m just curious, I don’t know…”

Rey chuckles, sits up on the couch, delicately tucking her long legs underneath herself.

“There was someone in London, years ago. I liked him very much but my ambitions clashed with his I guess. There was another, just before I auditioned.”

Him. A _boy, so she is attracted to men_. Ben feels his pulse soar.

“And now?”

Rey sits a little straighter, and for the first time there is a hint of cautious discomfort in her posture.

“There hasn’t been anyone since we signed. I just…there’s no time I guess.”

It has been three years since their band signed with F.O. and Ben feels a little baffled by the information.

“But don’t you get…like… _how_ do you?”

He stumbles on the words, feeling utterly crass for even asking and more so when Rey gives him a disbelieving look.

“You _can’t_ be serious…” Rey huffs, amused, “I do the same thing you do in the shower when you think no one can hear you, I probably have more toys though.”

Ben quickly decides to drop the subject before he gets any more sudden urges to jump out the window. He can’t act like a damn fool if he’s dead, can he?

“Besides, I’m not really interested in sleeping with people randomly. I like knowing who shares my bed.”

“I didn’t think you were that romantic, you sap.”

Rey shrugs, smiles that little secret grin that makes Ben get butterflies in the pit of his stomach.

“Not really romantic, I just really like having a connection to my partner, the sex is a lot more satisfying to me that way.”

“Right.”

Rey grins again, looking a little smug maybe but Ben relents. And he thinks of how close he and Rey are getting over the years and suddenly he needs a shower, making a mental note of keeping the embarrassing noises that escape him in better check.

* * *

It's not always fun and games.

With soaring popularity comes a bigger fanbase, harder to control, and their share of having everything about themselves discussed publicly.

People on social media platforms are notoriously scathing sometimes, and their every living moments are discussed back and forth on variety shows and twitter posts until they can’t stand to hear about anything anymore.

And then there’s the issue with Rey’s childhood. The issue where there should be none. She’d grown up in the foster system in England, had gotten emancipated at 16 and had immigrated to the US on a student visa. She’d been lucky to land on a few university grants and had earned herself a mechanical engineering degree.

Everyone knew about it, how her parents had abandoned her, how her foster parents had been abusive. How she’d lived in abject poverty most of her life. 

How she’d lacked for everything as a child, food insecurity stunting her growth, lack of care giving her attachment issues. She’d opened up to them as soon as they’d started working together, and they all did their best for her to feel at home and secure with them.

They all knew, but it didn't make it any easier when the rest of the world found out.

As their _de facto_ front woman, her every move was closely scrutinized and judged mercilessly.

Her weight, her looks, who she’s seen with and when, her past. Dissected mercilessly by the media day after day.

It's been discussed since they’ve released their first album, some clever people digging through her origins until they found something toothsome enough to hang on to. Another slew of comments and speculations burst out with each new material they release and it feels old hat and tedious when once again they emerge and Rey just blocks them out the best she can.

Ben doesn’t know how to deal with it, those vicious attacks on something Rey simply couldn’t change if she wanted, so he turns her lack of a family into a joke, on a public televised broadcast where she was put uncomfortably on the spot about her origins, hoping to defuse the tension.

Knowing he’s _massively_ fucked up on all levels when Finn gives him a swift kick to the shin underneath the table.

When Rey clams up instead of humouring it as she usually does and refuses to even look at his side of the table.

He’s fucked up. _Real bad_.

The ride back to the house is dead silent. Even chatty, cheerful Rose, driving the van and feeling the tension rolling off everyone in waves, keeps quiet.

The second they step indoors, in the privacy of the house, two hands get fisted in the front of his tee and he’s shoved, _hard_ , in the nearest wall, breath knocked out of him.

Rey is furious.

He can feel the electricity crackling between them and when Finn swoops in to separate them, the others too shocked to react, Rey hisses at him, making the keyboardist pause.

“Rey...” Finn starts, only to be hushed by her murderous glare.

“Get out. All of you.”

Finn insists again, grabbing her shoulder and Rey shrugs him off angrily, both hands still tangled in Ben’s tee and he feels like his heart is about to burst out of his chest because Rey looks pissed, but it's the sheer hurt underneath it that makes him completely defenseless.

Rey looks so purely hurt that he can’t breathe.

“ _Get. Out_.” she snaps, and Finn pulls back, finally relenting, pushing the three other members of the band out of the house, snagging Rose in passing too.

“Dinner is on me.” he mutters, giving Rey a worried glance before closing the door behind himself.

Leaving Ben out to face the storm brewing in Rey’s fiery eyes.

“You think its fucking _funny_ , making fun of the fact that I have no family, that I had to raise myself? That food insecurity gave me an eating disorder? You don’t think I hear _enough_ fucking shit about it _already_?”

Rey’s voice is hushed and low, and despite the bravado and the cursing and the hands pushing him against the wall, he sees the crumbling behind her facade.

He realizes that he’d gone too far at the first insensitive joke he’d made all those years ago, about her being little Rey Nobody, but he shuts up, an apology now would seem hollow. He’s deserved this anger, reaping what he sowed.

“Do you seriously think I’ve forgotten about the comments? You think that they don’t hurt anymore, when I see them fly by my eyes by the fucking dozen, the jokes about street urchins and welfare checks? About how I suck so much my own parents didn’t even want me? You think its fucking _laughing matter_?”

She slams Ben hard against the wall, getting close enough for him to feel her racing heart against his own chest, her breath hot and harsh on his chin.

“How _dare_ you? How dare you make a fucking joke like that on a tv broadcast where I can’t even defend myself, where I just have to take it and pretend I don’t feel like I’ve been stabbed. Do you even realize how much it _hurts_? My own fucking bandmate, someone I consider chosen family?”

She lets go angrily, backs off, face crumbling and eyes filling with water and Ben feels like he’s been punched in the gut. Wishes he’d actually been punched because it would hurt less than seeing Rey break down because of his careless actions.

“It hurts me so much more that it's you saying this shit, Ben. Faceless people on the internet, people that call themselves our fans, judging me for growing up in foster care, it hurts,” she explains, voice dwindling to a pained murmur, so small, “it hurts _so much_ , but it doesn’t hurt nearly as much as it does when it's _you_ saying those things.”

Her eyes are full of tears, and she looks so brittle, so fragile, like the smallest touch would shatter her and Ben realizes how exhausted Rey is. How she gives everything she has, sacrificing everything for their success and how much of an idiot he is for acting how he has.

He doesn’t have time to voice any of it, to apologize, Rey is already gone, her bedroom door down the hall closing with finality.

His legs give out underneath his weight and he slumps down against the wall, rubbing his eyes and trying to slow down his breathing but failing. It takes him god knows how long to finally calm down enough to get his thoughts in order, feeling drained and wanting so badly to make amends his hand slips on her bedroom door handle twice before he manages to open it. 

Rey is sitting on the floor, elbow on the windowsill, leaning against the wall. She’s smoking a vanilla cigarette like she usually does when she’s trying to calm down, tucked between index and middle finger in that elegant way only she can manage, the tip glowing red as she inhales. The streetlamps limning all the edges of the darkened room with yellow, highlighting her elegant profile, the angle of her jaw and the slope of her nose, the thick fringe of her lashes.

Ben steps in, watching the smoke curl up from Rey’s lips but before he can say anything the young woman speaks.

“I’m sorry Ben... shouldn’t have yelled at you.”

Ben is shocked. Shocked that Rey would even think of apologizing for a behaviour that had been more than righteous, stepping further in the room.

“I deserved every single bit of your anger, you shouldn’t apologize…”

She turns to him, looking so drained, all the fight seeped out of her to leave her eyes worryingly blank. She looks empty and it sends Ben in a panic.

“I’m twenty-two Ben. I mean…with everything we’ve been through and all those fucking comments…I should really be over this. I should just learn to let it go and taking my anger out on you was uncalled for.”

“No. No you don’t.” Ben replies, getting close enough to crouch down across from her, the sweet scent of vanilla flavoured tobacco and the sandalwood from her expensive fragrance going straight to his head.

He wants to hold her. He wants to pull her into his arms and tell her how sorry he is and swear high and low that he’ll protect her from now on. He’s been wanting to do that for years but he holds back. He holds back so much it nearly _hurts_.

“I’m sorry Rey. I’m _so_ sorry. I…I didn’t realize how much it hurt you, and the only reason I joked about it…” he starts, eyes welling up again and his voice gets hoarse with it and he hates himself for breaking down when what he has to say is so _damn_ important.

He takes a deep breath, looks up to Rey and her beautiful eyes and freckled face.

“I think you’re so strong. I think you’re the toughest and most tenacious out of all of us and when the comments came up I thought the best way to tackle it not to hurt you was to make fun of it, take it lightly, because I assumed nothing could hurt you. But I was wrong. I was so wrong for all those years and I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry I can’t even tell you how much. You don’t have to forgive me, but I needed you to know I never, _ever_ , meant to hurt you and that I’m sorry.” he manages through the tightness in his throat.

He stiffens when Rey wraps arms tight around his neck and pulls him closer, and the soft, forgiving gesture only makes the tears fall faster.

“It’s okay Ben…don’t cry.”

He laughs disbelievingly through his tears, wrapping both arms around Rey’s waist and pulling her almost into his lap.

“How…how can you be so forgiving when I’ve fucked up _so_ badly? I’m sorry…” he whispers against Rey’s shoulder and the young woman just rakes through his wild hair with gentle fingers, so soothingly his heart aches.

“We all make mistakes, Ben. Mine was not telling you it hurt me the first time you did it. We’ve both learned from it, haven’t we? Besides, I have to accept that for a lot of people, I’m nothing, little Rey Nobody...”

“Not to me,” Ben whispers against the soft curve of her shoulder.

Finn doesn’t say anything when he comes home later, alone, probably to assess the damages they’ve done to each other or the house, looking a little surprised to see them together on the couch, slumped against each other watching a movie.

Gives them both a little nod, and Ben could’ve _sworn_ the man was actually smiling a little as he headed back out, probably to get the others.

He’s too happy at having Rey leaning against his side to care.

* * *

 _Knights_ lasted longer than even they expected.

Ten solid years for an industry manufactured pop-rock group was impressive, managing to keep their relevance to the very last moment. Seven albums and as many world tours, countless festivals and concerts, and even a few reality TV stints, they were leaving the industry with a sense of satisfaction at what they had accomplished.

Poe Dameron had been largely responsible for their success as their manager, and as he quit First Order to venture out on his own, the rest of the band had been more than ambivalent at the thought of renewing contracts. So after many talks and bottles of wine, the five friends disbanded, sending a final insult to their old boss who had worked them to the bone mercilessly, until everything they created felt soulless.

Snoke had milked them dry, and since their image, the band name and most of their material belonged to First Order, there wasn’t much left to do to be rid of the old leach for good. Quitting while they were ahead was their best bet.

There was a silver lining to it all. Disbanding and getting out of the general spotlight when they were still young enough to have solo careers and their popularity still shining rather than letting their dreams fade and fall into obscurity.

“ _Stars are the brightest when they die, don’t they?_ ” Rey had judiciously said at the press conference announcing their disbanding, genuine tears in her eyes.

It had been a while since any of them felt emotions that weren’t carefully manufactured for the public. Tears were shed, mostly from elation at being free, but there were no regrets.

Finn and Phasma wanted to pursue their solo musician and acting careers, along with a few fun radio host gigs. Hux had picked up fine arts more seriously over the years, building up a solid reputation as an artist and it was something he wanted to pursue more seriously, along with Rose who had started her own art gallery. Ben was fielding producing gigs left and right, enough experience under his belt to produce what he wanted, his talent as a composer and lyricist very much sought after. No one lacked for work opportunities.

The only exception was Rey.

Rey didn’t have anything lined up, and didn’t seem to care either, buying a huge, airy house upstate, far from the action.

Claiming she needed to get closer to nature, that she needed a break. Maybe she’d write a couple of songs here and there, keep up with the ballet dancing training she’d had to give up when signing with First Order. Lots of maybes, nothing concrete.

She’d still come to their biweekly dinners, their excuse to be all together and talk about their projects, and it would hit Ben hard every time how much Rey had changed in the span of a few months out of the spotlight.

Here in NYC, he still had to maintain appearances, careful grooming and piling on the designer clothing, attending party after party, collecting expensive baubles to furnish his Tribeca apartment. It's what the job as a star producer entailed, didn’t it? Lining up as many attractive people in his bed as he did contracts, and huffing when Hux would tell him that his promiscuity was all about trying to fill a void.

And here came Rey, natural chestnut hair, just the right side of too long, falling tousled across make-up free hazel eyes. All fresh skin touched by the sun, more freckled than ever. Gone were the bright colours, the loud accessories and eclectic style that had been her signature look during their band days. 

Showing up to dinner in simple black jeans and plain tees, soft, cream-coloured sweaters that always smelled faintly of vanilla tobacco and citrusy-fresh cologne. Gone was the sexy, sultry, sandalwood-heavy scent that had permeated everything she’d owned when they all lived together in that big Brooklyn house.

With every passing week Ben was getting worried that one day a perfect stranger would be standing there instead of the woman he’d spent all his formative years with.

The woman he still pined after. 

Despite having all of the city at his feet if he wanted, all he wished for was the lithe vocalist who’d made his heart race out of his chest the very minute they’d met. 

He had no clue how to go about that. Not even a clue.

Standing outside in the blustery wind waiting for the valet to bring around his car to the front of the fancy restaurant where they’d had their Sunday dinner, watching Rey smoke.

She made the foul habit look glamorous and elegant, god knows how.

“They’re bad for you, you know?” he says, feeling weirdly on edge at Rey’s responding laughter.

“I like them…I don’t even smoke all that much, it would ruin my voice. I try to dance every day to offset it a little bit.”

“They’re still bad.” he replies stubbornly, disliking them from how sexy they made her look rather than for themselves.

He wonders how Rey would look like naked and sweat glossed, lazily smoking in bed after sex and he has to run a hand across his face to dispel the image.

“I’m a grown woman, I can do what I want.” the childish tone at odds with the words.

The glossy black Maserati arrives and Rey gets close to hug Ben goodnight, but on a whim he pushes her towards the passenger side instead.

“Get in. I’ll drive you home.”

“I live an hour away, and it's late Ben.”

Ben feels bold, opening the door for Rey with a mixture of gallantry and bravado, insisting.

“Got anything to drink at your place?”

Rey grins.

“Sure.”

* * *

The house is rustic in style, and cozy and warm and exactly what Ben imagined Rey would like. They’ve always had opposite tastes, and the earthy tones and abundance of warm wood doesn’t surprise him one bit.

The house is spotless, everything in its right place and yet it feels so lived in, so homey, he feels instantly at ease sinking down on the rust coloured sectional.

“Pick your poison.” Rey asks, offering two fancy looking bottles and Ben picks the old Macallan, watches her pour the amber liquid in two crystal tumblers.

Double measures.

It goes down like a trail of fire, the shimmering burn making his head swim. It won’t take much of this to melt his brain right off.

“That is some good stuff…” he hums, taking another fiery sip and Rey laughs, soft and fluted, settling beside him on the soft couch.

“I appreciate the finer things in life, can’t lie about that. I’m becoming a bit of a whisky connoisseur.” she replies, smiling against the rim of her glass and Ben can’t take his eyes off her lips.

He knows how slippery that slope is, knows how he gets when he drinks too much; completely reckless.

He drinks anyway, two glasses, three, Rey following along and by the time the whisky has burned through what’s left of his common sense, he has Rey pulled in his lap.

The slender woman straddling his thighs and her cheeks a dusky pink and suddenly she’s too close and he can’t back down and Rey is kissing him.

Kissing him with complete abandon, not a fucking care in the world and moaning wantonly when Ben’s hands slide up the back of her knit sweater.

He’s never heard a woman make such sounds and he wants more. He wants _so much_ more.

Kissing Rey is nothing like he imagined. It's a million times _better_.

Soft lips and eager tongue and the way her mouth yields to his sets fire to his blood and he starts to lift the sweater off Rey’s delicate frame, wanting to get to skin, maybe even put his mouth there, on the gold skin stretched tight over Rey’s heart.

But the movement makes her stiffen and she scrambles off, backs three paces and her face is at once confused and panicked.

She runs a hand across her fevered eyes and Ben is confused, lips still tingling with their kiss and he gets up, Rey’s face making his spine tense with worry.

“What’s wrong?”

Rey starts shaking her head, left and right, as if trying to get her brain back into order and failing.

“What the fuck are we doing? _What the fuck_ Ben?”

“You were kissing me. It was fucking _amazing_ if you ask me…”

Rey rubs at her face with her hands, looking lost and Ben wants to go to her and reassure her and tell her he’s wanted this for more than ten years now but something tells him it's not the way to go about it. At all.

“We’re both drunk…I…we shouldn’t be doing this.”

Ben feels like pulling his black hair out at the roots.

“What are you talking about Rey? Do I need to spell it out for you!” he demands, frustrated from all the years trying to get his feelings out and when the timing is right, Rey is acting hesitant and he feels like screaming.

She looks at him from underneath the thick fringe of her lush hair, shocked.

“What are you talking about Ben?”

“I love you. I’ve loved you since the _first_ fucking day Rey,” he spits out, crossing the few paces separating them to hold her face in his hands, “That day when you barged in First Order’s offices, introducing yourself to me. You remember that? I fell in love with you that day.”

Rey looks at him, completely dazed, mouth falling open, but then her face hardens, and she steps out of Ben’s grip.

“Am I _really_ supposed to believe that?”

“What the fuck do you mean?”

Rey laughs, but it's hollow, brittle.

“You fuck everything with pretty legs and long lashes Ben. You always have. I’ve seen you with more lovers than I have fingers on my hands to count. How am I supposed to think I’m not like them?”

The statement is as sobering as a slap to the face. It hurts just as much.

“Rey…you can’t be serious. I’m here, standing in front of you telling you I love you. I’ve loved you for years and you fucking doubt me? It's not words I tell just about everyone.”

Rey crosses thin arms on her chest, expression ice cold.

“You told Baz you loved her, more than once.”

Bazine was one of his lovers and very good friends. One he was especially close to, and having their friendship brought up as a proof of his unreliability just spurred his anger.

“Are you fucking _kidding_ me? Of course I _love_ Baz, as a friend and confident! She’s the only friend I have from before the band…and should I remind you how the fuck she looks like?”

Bazine was half-argentinean, a fashion model with a lithe, athletic body and beautiful tan skin, long chestnut hair, resolutely tomboyish and yet feminine.

“What do her looks have to do with anything?”

“She’s a latina version of _you,_ Rey! The only reason I ended up attracted to her sexually was because she made me think of you…” he pauses, running fingers through his hair angrily, trying to keep his feelings in check and the next words get out before he can even think of them, “Do you want to know what I think about when we have sex? Do you? I think about _you_ Rey. I imagine its you laid out underneath me moaning and begging and its the fucking thought of you that gets me off. I’ve been imagining you instead of all the everyone I’ve been fucking for the past fucking ten years. Do you have _any_ fucking idea how _far_ underneath my skin you are?”

When he stops, he realizes he’s been yelling, his voice getting louder with each sentence and Rey is standing there, completely silent and avoiding his eyes. He reaches over and grabs on to her slim shoulders, waves of tension underneath his fingers.

“I _need_ to know, Rey,” he asks, pleads, “I need to know how you feel, where you stand.”

He needs it more than he needs to breathe but Rey feels like ice. Her expression so carefully blank and terrifying Ben backs off a step, lets go.

“I don’t know how I feel, Ben. This is…it's a lot to process.”

It's not a yes. It's not the _I love you too_ he expected. The words he ached for.

“We…I think we need some space.”

Space? As if moving an hour out of New York and seeing her once every two weeks wasn’t space _enough_. He feels like scoffing but he has no energy left.

“We? I don’t need space Rey. I know what I want.”

“Then _I_ need space.”

Ben takes a deep shuddering breath, squares his shoulders.

“I’m leaving then.”

Rey looks up at that, her wide doe eyes are glossy and wet but Ben finds enough willpower deep within not to be swayed by it.

“You’re fucking trashed, you can’t drive like this.”

“I don’t fucking care.”

Rey reaches for his arm but he’s already stepping away, back to the foyer to slide into his shoes and jacket.

“Don’t be stupid…”

He’s already been stupid enough, its not a bit of extra recklessness that will make a difference he thinks, bitterly, angrily zipping up his leather jacket.

“Are you _really_ gonna fucking run away, because I don’t feel ready to trust you with my heart?” Rey asks, getting more than a little angry and Ben wishes he could turn his fucking brain off because all he can think about is how fucking beautiful she looks.

Pissed off and alcohol flushed and her mouth still kiss reddened, her hair mussed up around her face. He wants to kiss her so _badly_ and he hates himself for it.

“Yeah, I am,” he replies, bluntly, “I’m done tiptoeing around you Rey. You know how I feel, and I don’t think I know how to be your friend anymore, not after this. You want your space? Fine. Take it. Take all the fucking _space_ you need, but I’m out.”

He doesn’t wait for her to answer, stepping out in the ice cold February night.

He manages to drive home, stopping once on the side of the deserted highway because the tears are hazing everything like a bright halo and he can’t see anymore. He ignores his phone. Turning the sound off because it rings incessantly.

Rey calls eight times. Leaves six messages.

He erases everything without even listening to it.

Finn calls twice too.

He calls Bazine when he gets home, needing to get it all off his chest, her low, soothing voice triggering more tears.

“ _Do you want me to come over?_ ” she asks, sleepily, and he looks at the alarm clock beside his bed, realizing its five in the morning.

He could use the companionship, but it would be selfish, especially after what happened.

“No sweetheart. Go back to bed, I’ll be alright.”

There’s a pause on the other end.

 _“You know babe, maybe you need some space too._ ” she says, before hanging up.

The words keep him up for a while more.

Later he calls Poe, still his manager under his own label, and tells him to cancel all of his forthcoming contracts.

“I want to take a sabbatical. I need a break.”

“ _Are you mad?_ ” Poe squeaks at the other end, “ _What about the lost revenue?”_

Ben sighs. He has no need for the money. He has enough saved up to retire now if he wanted. He’s always done it for his love of the music, that’s why he went indie, to do his own thing, on his terms.

“I don’t do it for the money. I never have. Call the accountant and have her write you a check for your fees, any amount you need. Prepare a press statement and release it for me okay?”

Then he calls Hux.

“I’m going away for a while.”

There’s a shocked pause on the other end, and a hissed curse, the muted sounds of a baby whining.

“ _Just hold on a minute…I’m feeding Sara._ ”

Hux had a little daughter in November with Rose, now that he has time to be a dad, keeping the news securely under wraps. Finn had been baffled and envious that Hux, notoriously clumsy with children, would be a parent before him, and babysat the little girl as often as he could get away with. 

Sara is absolutely lovely, takes after her father’s red hair already, and he feels the slightest pang of disappointment that he won’t be around when she learns to walk and talk.

He reminds himself to ask for photos and videos when he’s away.

The whining gets muffled at the other end.

“ _I’m sorry, she started teething…What do you mean you’re going away?_ ”

“I’m taking a sabbatical. I’m gonna travel for a while.”

“ _Where?_ ”

“I don’t really know yet.” he replies honestly, cradling the phone between his shoulder and ear, folding a sweater before adding it to the suitcase.

 _“Is this about what happened between you and Rey?_ ”

He groans, stops his packing to pace the bedroom instead.

“ _What_ has she told you?”

“ _Nothing. Finn told me you two had a falling out last night._ ”

“That’s a _mild_ way of putting it.” he replies, sighing, “And before you ask no, I won’t tell you.”

He can almost hear Hux rolling his eyes from here.

“ _What else could it fucking be but a lover’s quarrel?_ ”

Ben’s lips tighten at the words.

“We’re _not_ lovers, so _no_ , it's not a _lover’s_ quarrel-” he sits on the edge of the bed, rubbing his hand nervously on his jeans because the thought of her made his hands uncomfortably clammy,- “Please take care of everyone while I’m away. I put Poe in charge of my stuff while I’m gone, but you’re the only one I’m telling apart from him. Kiss your daughter for me okay.”

 _“I…Ben you’re worrying me. You sound like you’re not fucking coming back. At least call me when you land, wherever that is._ ”

He takes a deep, shuddery breath. Wonders if he is even coming back. He’s doesn’t know, has no clue what he fucking wants yet.

He could be gone a month or twelve years, he doesn’t know.

He doesn’t want to think about it either.

“I’ll keep in touch, promise.”

When he gets to the airport, he looks at the departure board. Scans through the quickly shifting words and letters, decides to let anyone at the first open airline company desk pick for him.

He’s never felt more unsure about anything. It's exactly what he needs.

He steps up to the window, the lady on the other side has a pleasant smile.

“I’ll take a ticket to wherever that leaves in the next two hours, please.” he asks, handing over his credit card.

The woman’s mouth opens slightly in surprise, but she nods agreeably, accepting the thin piece of plastic.

“Will that be a round trip, Mister Solo?”

Ben grins, feeling free for the first time in ages.

“One way, please.”

* * *

Scotland is a rainy country.

He looks at the forecast in the morning on that gritty TV down in the hotel’s lounge every morning but there’s no point. It's gonna rain anyway.

He kinda likes it. Suits his mood.

He rents a small car in Inverness, struggling with the cheerful clerk's thick accent, and then struggling again with the manual transmission; he hasn’t driven one in years. He then promptly gets lost in the highlands, and he realizes that Scotland is not just rain and fog, it's also verdantly hilled and that there are meadows completely covered in wildflowers, swaying in the wind.

He goes to the Hebride Islands, the landscape on Skye moving him to tears. 

Grey rock and icy waters for as far as the eye can see, and the sad songs of fisherwomen and their selkie lovers. There is a lot of magic here, and Ben can feel every drop of it flowing through his veins.

Then there’s Canna and Islay, and Jura where he buys whisky with Gaelic labels and sends it back to New York. Thinking of her hazel eyes and her fine taste for the amber spirits.

He tastes a good bunch of said spirits at the neighbourhood pub, and at least ten different kinds of beers ranging from refreshing to gross, and makes friends despite the thick accents and the fact that he doesn’t speak a lick of Gaelic, learning enough curse words in the span of an evening to make anyone blush. 

Waking up in the morning on a friendly stranger’s couch after forgetting where his hotel was, still a little drunk and accepting the cup of tea she makes him with a sheepish smile.

* * *

He flies to Morocco next.

It's a cheap flight, and he lands in dry heat, diametrically opposed to the weather he was having in Scotland.

He feels like he’s landed on a different planet, sand and white medinas, palm trees in clay pots, and yet, there is that nostalgia. Of a childhood in southern California, his mother’s garden full of succulents, lying by the pool and looking at the clouds, wondering if his dad would land in time for dinner.

He rents a little villa in Rabat, right by the turquoise ocean. He picks up a bit of French playing chess with an old man at the tea house next door, buys all the women in his life pretty jewelry from the souks. He eats fresh dates for the first time in his life, picks oranges in the neighbour’s yard. On a sweltering day he climbs on top of Hassan tower and looks at sea birds and surfers on the beach below, 800 year old stone under his feet.

Touching a bit of history with reverent fingertips, thinking of how young America is in the grand scheme of things.

He’s toured the world more times than most people could ever hope to, jetting from country to country to play his guitar for adoring arena crowds. 

So many places, and yet he’s seen none of it.

* * *

Spain is next door.

There’s a 50 euro flight across the strait of Gibraltar and he takes it, along with a handful of young, dusty and drunk travellers headed for Marbella. It makes for an interesting flight. 

Pretty quickly he realizes that the spanish taught to him by his Chicano high school friends in Los Angeles is pretty much useless, but he still manages to order the best paëlla of his life, the playful waitress teasing him about his accent.

In a local park close to his hotel in Seville, there is a flamenco dancer in a black dress, roses in her hair, solemn as she dances on a makeshift wooden floor. Her guitarist teasing hypnotic, gut wrenching melodies out of his simple instrument, punctuated by the staccato of her heels. She moves like living flame, sinuous and serpentine, the music carrying her every move and Ben is mesmerized by the beauty of it. 

He hasn’t touched a guitar in weeks, and on a whim, he buys one from a local luthier. Rosewood and cypress, with a bright, dry sound unlike any guitar he owns, and the first night he has it in his hands, he plays on his hotel balcony until his fingertips hurt. Figuring out elusive phrases that he’d struggled to construct back in NYC, writing them down in his composition notebook with sore, bloody fingers and the pleasant feeling of a job accomplished.

A piece falling into place, right where it belongs.

In Barcelona he eats enough seafood for an entire lifetime and gets his wallet stolen on a bus, thankful that he’d left his passport and credit cards at the hotel. He buys a disposable camera and takes half a million photographs of the Sagrada Familia cathedral, turning them into postcards. 

Mailing it all without a return address.

* * *

In Istanbul he takes the most terrifying ferry ride of his life. Burly men maneuvering the huge ships like bumper cars, yelling at each other unintelligibly across the dark waters of the Bosphorus.

Turkey, he learns from a thorough museum visit, is the gateway to Asia, the silk road, thousands of years of civilization, religions coexisting in tenuous balance. He visits all those buildings erected to the glory of the divine, the Blue Mosque and the Hagia Sophia, sitting for hours under the prismatic sunlight filtered by the stained glass windows. Ben’s never been a religious type, not even a spiritual one at that. His parents are the least kosher jews he knows, and he certainly wasn’t raised with worship, but sitting in that millenia old cathedral, he thinks there might be something to it. Maybe.

He also learns that bath-houses are definitely not like their American counterparts, nearly fainting from the crushing heat in the hammam he visited out of curiosity. He does take a liking to it though, wondering why he’s only been to a spa a handful of times in New York, thinking of all the good it does to sore muscles and weary minds. 

Then there’s the food.

Turkish food is wonderful, straddling a million cultures and countries all at once. He eats his own weight in roasted eggplant, kebab and baklava. 

He also learns that raki, Turkey’s national drink, delivers a much worse hangover than whiskey, if that’s even possible. Getting snagged at the local bar by a gang of rambunctious Turkish university students with impeccable English and a penchant for the anise fragranced spirits. The lot of them inviting him over to their table piled high with meze and tiny coffee cups, to share a tall Nargile pipe wafting fragrant smoke.

“Aslan sütü,” the pretty marine biologist beside whom he’s seated explains, her arm companionably draped over his shoulders as he drinks his fifth glass, “ _Lion’s milk_. The drink of the strong.”

He buys a bottle despite the headache the next day, sends it to Poe with an explanation because it's too good to pass up. Adding a warning or two about the imminent hangover if he overindulges.

* * *

He flies to South Korea next, rents an apartment in Seoul where he has a bunch of friends, finding a slew of friendly expats.

English teachers and music producers and a bunch of Korean friends from his L.A. youth. An eclectic mishmash of people that all somehow get along.

It's the first time he has _legit_ korean food in years and he has a hard time not moaning at his first bite of _samgyeopsal_. He spends nearly three months in Seoul, holed up in his apartment close to the city centre.

There he writes. He fills six notebooks in as many weeks, relentless. Ten album’s worth of music and lyrics, poems. He records a demo in his bathroom with a rented microphone and his laptop, fingers dancing on strings more naturally than breathing.

He sings for the first time in ages. The last time he put words to music in his own voice, he was an 18 year old busking on a street corner in New York City.

He gets dragged to an open mike night in a shoddy bar one hot evening in September. It's packed to the rafters and his friends all push him to the stage, encouraging hands and a shot of soju down his throat, liquid courage.

He has memories of packed stadiums and feeling less nervous than he does now. It's been awhile. Ages since he’s laid himself bare like that, just him and his guitar, singing about life and love and finding himself and it feels cleansing.

It feels fresh, new. 

Tearing down the house when a boy with a rudimentary drum kit lays out some beats for him to play to. He gets the stage to himself all night and it's catalyzing.

Drinks flow, he buys a few rounds, gets touched and clasped on the shoulder by what feels like a hundred friendly hands pushing him up above the walls he’s built for himself. 

There’s a beautiful long-legged Ethiopian expat who buys him a drink, and they chat for hours at the bar, flushing when she runs fingers through his hair. When she kisses him outside the bar in the blustery wind, hardly leaning because she’s as tall as he is, his body sharply reminds him that he hasn’t had sex in months and suddenly his entire being aches for it. 

It doesn’t take any convincing on his part to take her to bed, as she leads the way through his apartment, playfully dragging him by the hands. Her eyes are midnight skies and her skin glows like copper in the dim light of his bedroom when he fits his body between her thighs, the gold cherry pendant hanging between her collarbones catching the light when his hips move against hers.

Her kisses so tender and her body so welcoming, comforting, entangling with his in the pale sheets. Her hands in his hair and her delicious sighs against his throat. She gives him the release he didn’t know he needed, falling in a peaceful sleep, still entwined with her. 

She’s full of wisdom when she slips into her clothes in the morning, his own body still sprawled in the rucked sheets.

“You love somebody. I could tell, in your way of kissing and your touches…” she says, thoughtful, stepping into her dark jeans, her legs going on for miles, “You should go find them, you miss them.”

He blinks, somewhat destabilized by her apparent perception -or was it his transparency- and experiencing what is starting to feel like homesickness. He thinks of eyes like bronze coins, like he does every night no matter where he is, and feels his heart stutter.

He still feels the same. No matter how many weeks, months he’s been gone, he feels the same way.

If anything he wants her even _more_.

“Her...” he confirms, and she smirks, untangling the profusion of her waist length braids with both hands, “And yeah, I do miss her.”

She kisses him on the mouth, softly biting the jut of his lip, and then enters her phone number in his own.

“Take her with you next time you come to Seoul, baby. I’d love to meet the girl who fills your eyes with stars like that.”

Ben almost goes back the next day.

But as he packs his suitcase, he realizes he’s not ready yet. He still has things to see, people to meet.

* * *

He flies to Argentina, on principle, calling Baz endlessly to give him suggestions, which she does enthusiastically. 

He learns a lot of new dance steps in Buenos Aires, at the Barrancas de Belgrano park where he was casually strolling after dinner. Getting bullied into dancing tango by a very pretty older woman on a street corner, a lone violinist providing the music and her partner laughing heartily at his every misstep. 

She curses at him fondly when he steps on her foot but persists until he remembers that he has to lead. 

He goes on a couple of wine tours, thankful that he’s rented a bike and not a car, pedalling down verdant, vine and olive tree covered hills, pleasantly buzzed on malbec and syrah.

The further south he goes, the more raw and poignant the landscape gets. The harshness of mountains and the beauty of glaciers intermingling to create images he’s never seen in his life. Images he’ll never forget.

He befriends a horse in Patagonia, _Alegre_ , a kind mare with big brown eyes and an easy canter, carrying him across the plains with a little kick in her step. The same intelligent gaze as his father’s old dog, and just as nosy about vegetable scraps.

He has wild fantasies of buying a ranch and raising sheep, spending his days riding, dawn til dusk.

Maybe when he retires.

When he reaches _Tierra del Fuego_ , he knows he’s reached the end of the world. The southernmost part of the americas, the doorway to antarctica. Barren, mossy plains give way to glaciers and snowy mountains, red beaches and turquoise, mineral rivers. The sunsets, and he’s seen a few, put all the others to shame, painting the sky with more colours than can be described in human words.

He sits on the beach for hours, contemplating the icy waters, and ponders if this is it, if he’s reached the epiphany he’s been chasing. 

“Not yet,” he tells the snowy white kelp goose pecking around the sand at his feet, “I’ve been on five continents, I’m missing a sixth…”

* * *

He’s been gone a little over a year when he flies to New Zealand.

It feels like he’s been gone six months, he hardly has seen the time go by, realizing how long he’s been away when he looks through the photographs on his phone on his long haul flight. Having a mild existential crisis when seeing that his Scotland pics are thirteen months old. He shrugs, orders a whisky soda from the flight attendant and promptly goes back to sleep.

When he lands it’s another landscape, another change of pace. He loves the easy going lifestyle, the small towns and farms. New Zealand is a hippie farmer paradise, his mother would love it.

He feels like a complete nerd when checking out the set of Lord of The Rings, caught in the ultimate tourist trap and guiltily enjoying every second, hitting his head on everything since he’s the opposite of hobbit-sized. He can’t lie though, those pictures a girl and her mother took for him while he was holding a giant sword look pretty cool. 

He’s a dork. A cool dork.

In Kiwi he meets a Maori tattoo artist in a pub, a giant of a man, much taller than he is, covered with impressive ink and with a Queens accent thicker than his muscular arms, the two bonding over their shared nationality. He spends the next few hours talking about his travels, how he’s been visiting all five continents over the past year, and he decides to get something on a whim.

A keepsake.

He sits down beside the tattooed man at the drawing table in the small shop, not really knowing what to get.

“I’m leaving it up to you.” he says at length, “You’re the artist…”

The man grins and gets to work.

The tattoos hurt less than he expected, a dull burn, buzzing through his bones. Wrapping around both ankles, the black pattern seemingly abstract until the artist explains the meaning behind them.

“They’re birds.” he says, over the hum of the machine, pausing to wipe away excess ink and blood, “In my culture, birds signify travel, and since you’ve traveled so much, your legs taking you to all these places…it felt fitting.”

It's fitting indeed, and he admires the black bands around his ankles when it's done. Proud of them, and proud of how far he’s gone.

That night when he looks at the bold lines in the full length mirror of his little apartment, he takes time to look at himself. Closely.

His hair now grazes his shoulders, and there’s a few grays filtering through the heavy mass of them. He’s a bit leaner, there’s a definition to his muscles that hadn’t been there when he’d lived his cushy retired rock-star life. There’s a golden sheen to his usually milky complexion, from hours out enjoying the sun. He doesn’t look as tired as he once did. 

The reflection in the mirror reflects the changes he’s been through these past months, and he’s not displeased about it. 

He’s seen so much, lived through what feels like a hundred lifetimes. He feels like an adult for the first time in his life.

Packing the suitcase for the last time a week later. Time to go home.

It took him fourteen months to feel ready to head back to his life. He misses his friends, his family, both blood and chosen. He misses his bed, and NYC’s familiar landscape.

He misses a pair of hazel eyes.

It's time.

He steps into the airport, shuffles over to the airline counter and the lady on the other side has a friendly smile. He gets an echo of that day in February, eons ago, when he left.

He’d felt completely uncertain at the time.

He feels absolutely sure now.

It's an interesting contrast.

“I would like a ticket to New York City. JFK please.” he asks with a measure of confidence he didn’t have back then, handing over his credit card.

He’s learned a lot in his travels.

“Will that be a round trip, Sir?”

He smiles, softly.

“One way, please.”

* * *

It takes him twenty four hours to recuperate.

He sleeps for eighteen of them, in his own bed and it feels like paradise.

The other six he’s calling people.

His family first, and then Poe, relieved to have his talent back on american soil. And then he calls his chosen family, Hux and Rose, Phasma, and Finn. He did call each of them during his travels, a few times, letting them know where he was.

He’d even called Rey here and there, consciously calling when he knew she wouldn’t be able to answer. It was cowardly, but he did it anyway, heart fluttering when he heard the fluted greeting on her answering machine. 

He’d leave her messages, but never a callback number.

He doesn’t call her either once he’s back, despite Finn’s suggestion that he should.

Rey is the one thing he’s still unsure about. He knows how _he_ feels. He knows that he still loves her, probably always will.

If anything the distance made him even surer of everything he feels. Crystallized his feelings, set them in stone.

But he’s afraid of calling and finding out she’s found someone, that she went on with her life while he took a leap year. Something that she is completely entitled to of course, but he won’t lie to himself thinking that it would leave him indifferent.

He’s not ready to handle a second rejection. Not today.

He goes to bed after a long shower, thinking that it can wait a day, or a week.

He then sleeps like the dead until noon the next day, woken up by a combination of banging on his front door and insistent bursts of the doorbell.

A rather unpleasant way to wake up as far as he’s concerned, and he gets up after a minute, realizing that whoever is brutalizing his doorbell won’t be deterred by indifference. Slipping on dark sweats and not bothering with a shirt because he just wants the _damn_ noise to fucking _stop_.

Jogging to the door still sleep hazed and opening it sharply with his mouth already shaping a few choice words about the rudeness of waking someone by hammering their doorbell but the words die in his mouth.

On his apartment doorstep stands Rey Niima.

Her hair is still perfectly too long, and her skin flawlessly freckled and rosy at the cheeks. She’s wearing a grey sweater and black jeans, and she looks absolutely murderous.

He doesn’t have the time to even articulate a word that Rey’s hand flies back and he’s getting slapped hard enough to crack his jaw and make his ears ring, cheek stinging something fierce.

Getting slapped gets put right up there with his list of unpleasant ways to get woken up. Along with the doorbell brutalizing and the giant spider crawling up his leg he experienced in Patagonia. It had been harmless but he’d deny the high-pitched screams that had escaped him to his dying day.

“I swear to _fucking_ god Ben Solo, if you ever, _ever_ , think of pulling _another_ fucking disappearing act on me…I’m tracking you down, I don’t even _care_ where, and breaking your _goddamn_ legs you hear me?” Rey hisses, voice shrill, staring Ben down fearlessly.

He rubs his jaw, squaring his shoulders and trying his best to return the gaze with the same amount of bravado.

“Are we done here?” he asks, feeling more than a little reckless.

Getting slapped across the face for breakfast does that to a man.

Rey’s eyes get heavy-lidded and her cheeks flush deeper and she slams the door behind herself, pushing Ben further in the apartment, both hands on his chest.

“Oh no. We are not even _close_ to done here. We won’t be done for hours, Ben.” she replies, voice hoarse and velvety and she leaps up.

Wrapping endless legs around Ben’s waist, and her slender arms around his neck and she’s kissing him.

Rey is kissing him like she’s drowning, dying, like his mouth is her life source. _Hungry_ doesn’t even begin to define it.

There’s a clumsy stumble to the bedroom, bruising lips and roaming hands, Rey on her back on the bed, shirt pulled up and off. She isn’t wearing a bra and her tits are small and perky, her pink nipples hard. 

Dragging Ben down between her parted legs and arching up, the heated junction of her thighs brushing against his hard cock through the respective layers of their clothes.

Thrusting up against Ben’s palm when he shoves a hand down Rey’s jeans, licking into her mouth before kissing lower, all the skin he can reach while keeping his fingers against her cunt. Circling them slow and hard, grinding against her clit, Rey looking devastatingly beautiful splayed out on his white sheets.

Rey’s hips are rolling up, needy verging on desperate, skin shiny with sweat but she stops Ben with a hand around his wrist, leaving him groaning against her collarbone.

“Fuck me goddamnit!” Rey grits out, pushing her open jeans and thong down her hips and legs.

Arching up obligingly when Ben helps with trembling hands because it's hitting him right this instant. The few previous minutes had felt unreal, but this? Rey naked and begging and parting her legs for him, in his bed, is more _real_ than anything and he needs a moment to breathe.

To make sense of it.

He wants to ask a thousand questions but that little voice in the back of his head is telling him _not_ now. _Please not now_.

Rey’s mouth falls open when Ben pushes two saliva slicked fingers inside her. Her back curving up in an elegant arch and hips bucking back, dusky pink nipples hardened to buds. There’s plenty of slick but Rey is so tight, so fucking tight her body sucks his fingers in, clenching hard, legs falling open even further.

Hands fisting in the sheets above her head and her eyes fever-bright, completely pliant and open. Ben wonders if he’ll even manage to last a minute once he’s inside her, and he’s almost vibrating with the tension, adding another finger and slowly stretching her, feeling his patience seep right out of him with each breathless moan that filters past Rey’s friction reddened lips.

“Get inside me…I’m ready, _please_ …” she pleads, hands still laid out above her head and Ben swallows hard around his own breath, slicking himself with her wetness as fast as he can one handed, the other still working her cunt.

“You sure? You’re still…I mean…you still feel so tight.”

Rey laughs, sultry low and so velvety, reaching up for Ben’s shoulders, dragging him down on top of her.

“C’mere…” she whispers, breath hot against his lips, “It's been awhile, but I can take it. I _want_ you, Ben Solo…”

She mouths a curse and hisses softly when he pushes in, slowly, slicked thumb finding her clit and circling it intently. The caress makes Rey part her legs further, hips cocking up and allowing Ben to get all the way inside tight, wet heat, bottoming out with a groan and Rey clings to him desperately, panting and cursing.

“Fuck…fuck _yes_ , _just_ like _that_ …fill me.”

Her hands splaying on the small of his back and heels pushing down underneath the curve of his ass, pushing him up and so deep in. So fucking deep he can feel Rey’s pulse around his cock. He gives a shallow thrust, and another and Rey is reaching for it, hips arching up and meeting him stroke for stroke.

Living flame in his arms and obscenities spilling from her lips, eyes so bright, hitching breath and throaty moans. Falling apart underneath him.

“God you’re gorgeous…Rey. You’re so beautiful…” he whispers against a soft, citrus and vanilla scented neck and she holds him tighter, pushes up against him.

Sucking at the bend of his shoulder while her hands guide his hips down, demanding more, faster, harder, fingers clenching in muscle and firm skin when Ben complies to the unspoken demands.

At one point he has to pin Rey down, because she’s moving too much and too deliciously and he really wants this to last, feeling that heat gathering in his tailbone, down his belly. His plan backfiring spectacularly when Rey hooks her own hands underneath her knees, holding herself open instead.

So _open_ , knees against her chest and Ben can’t handle that much _skin_ , that much offered flesh and willing vulnerability and his cock pulses.

He reaches for Rey’s clit, circling it hard and fast as his own hips lose rhythm, and then she is shuddering and trembling, arching up with her mouth parting in a breathless moan as she comes.

Silvery white trails on his hand and Rey’s clenching belly, pulling out as she pulsed so tight around him. He couldn’t have held back any longer even if he’d wanted.

His orgasm white hot and setting every single nerve ending in his body aflame, skin too tight and breath burning out of his lungs.

Holding each other in the hazy aftermath, endless caresses, Rey’s body fitting just right against his.

“Don’t leave me…” Rey whispers against his throat, voice hoarse and breaking down, “I love you so much, don’t disappear again, please…”

Ben holds her tight through the shuddering breaths and hushed sobs, kissing her hair and the soft skin of her forehead, holding her tight enough to bruise ribs.

“I’m not going anywhere. I’m here. And I love you too. I love you.”

It takes a few minutes for Rey to calm down, breaths even and then hitching again when she climbs on top of him, straddling his thighs, hair wild and cheeks flushed.

“Make love to me. Take me until all I can feel is you…”

Her skin like dusky gold and she looks angel-like in the early afternoon light and all Ben wants is to make her forget her own name from moaning his too much.

* * *

They spend the day in bed, the light shifting through the white curtains, drawing patterns on Rey’s smooth back. Patterns Ben carefully traces with his fingers, kissing the lines of muscle in his lovers shoulders, nosing the ridge of her shoulder blade.

He’s sated and languid, feeling completely boneless and so happy he could cry.

“What made you change your mind?” he asks her, hand curving over the back of her neck.

“About you?” Rey replies, turning to face him and she looks so beautiful, still a little wrecked, hair in wild tousles.

He hums in response, draping Rey’s leg over his hip and the intimacy of the skin to skin contact is delicious.

“You know what people always say…” Rey starts, cupping Ben’s jaw in her small, warm hand, “You never know how much you need something until its gone? Well I’ve learned how fucking true that was when thinking about you felt like I was missing a limb. I _missed_ you Ben. I missed you the moment you stepped out of my house but I didn’t want to admit it to myself that I had feelings for you. I was so afraid of being hurt…But I know now. I know you’re all I’ve ever wanted.” she murmurs, tilting Ben’s face down to hers for a kiss full of tenderness.

“What about you?” She asks Ben, fitting her head underneath his chin, hot breath against his throat and Ben’s hands pull her even closer, caressing down her spine, “What made you come back?”

“You know, I’ve been on six continents, seen so many things, met countless people. But when I went to bed at night you were always the last thing I thought about. The distance didn’t change anything, I still felt the same. I wanted to forget you, and find myself. And I did find myself, I found out so many things about myself that I had to explore…but it didn’t make me forget you. If anything the distance made me want you even more.”

“Distance makes the heart grow fonder, doesn’t it? I learned that too I think…You’re not going away again, are you? I don’t think…I don’t think my heart could take it.” Rey whispers and Ben pushes her back a fraction, kisses her lips, slow and fervently.

“I’m done running.” he murmurs softly.

He had everything he wanted, right here. No more running, unless she came along for the ride.

That night, with Rey sleepy-soft and breathing even in his arms, he dreams of horses with kind eyes, and a little house large enough for two in Patagonia.

**Author's Note:**

> Sooooo what did y'all think? Give this tired author your feedback in the form of comments or kudos and I will endeavour to write more trash for y'all <3 big hugs and stay healthy! xoxo


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